Behind the Scenes Minis: Two Williams

Tracy and Holly discuss problematic aspects of trials and the parts of Rice's story that they each found themselves thinking about. Then, Palmer's status as a doctor is discussed, as well as the weird but unsubstantiated parts of his story that didn't make it into the episode.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy P.
Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. We talked about William marsh
Rice and his death, which is often described as definitely

(00:21):
a murder, but what is I think the most authoritative
and thorough account of the crime and the trial and
all of that ends on and actually maybe maybe it
wasn't Maybe he was already dead when they gave him
the chloroform. Some of the things that are cited as
reasons why this whole chloroform story doesn't really add up.

(00:44):
There was the thing that we said in the episode,
which is that people would have been able to smell
the chloroform when they walked in the room, and nobody
reported it smelling like chloroform. Also, Charlie Jones described burning
the sponge and towel in the kitchen, but reform is
not flammable, so it would have hung around. Yeah, that

(01:05):
it's there's just some question marks. And one of the
points that's made in that book, which is the Death
of Old Man Rice, The True Story of Criminal Justice
in America by Martin L. Friedland, is uh that a
lot of the things that are still question marks today
around this whole case come from expert testimony that was
given at trial, and expert witnesses still operate very similarly

(01:30):
in courts today to the way that they did uh
in you know, the early twentieth century when this case
was still happening. Uh. So there are still instances when
expert witness testimony is later revealed to maybe not make
any sense um and has you know, possibly led people

(01:51):
to be unjustly incarcerated. Um. I know there's been so
much discussion of expert witness testimony related to things like
blood spatter patterns, um that later there's been like an, oh,
there's actually no scientific validity to all of this testimony

(02:11):
about the spatter patterns things like that. So this is
one of those things that even though I picked this
because it felt like kind of a kookie murder mystery
uh for October ish time, also has like relevance to
how court proceedings still happens today. I had a moment

(02:32):
related to none of that earlier on that that I
had such envy where William marsh Rice described his father
as a person who had a piece about him because
he believed in you know, Providence. I was like, huh,
what must that feel like? That sounds amazing you. There's

(02:54):
a pause when I I'm like, oh, it's my turn
to talk. But I had this, you know, mill a
second day dream of like, oh my gosh, peace in
my head? What is that? Wow? I also had a
thing that particularly struck me that's totally unrelated to either
of the things that you have just talked about, which
is that when William Marsha Rice was living, uh, you

(03:18):
could be the second richest person in all of Texas
for the low, low price of seven fifty thou dollars, right, Which, yeah,
that's that's not an amount of money that puts anybody
into the rank of the richest person in Texas at
all at all at this point. No, not not the

(03:40):
I mean the richest person of most places. Yeah, at
least in US currency. It's a weird thing. It's just
a yeah. I mean there. I remember there being articles
several years ago about how being a millionaire wasn't really
a thing anymore, Like it was still a thing by
definite issue, but it wasn't it didn't have have the

(04:02):
same meaning that it had like in the nineteen seventies,
and I was just like, yeah, especially because there are
so many things that are like, if you want to retire,
you need at least a million dollars, and it's like, wow,
I guess we all work forever now. Yeah. It was

(04:25):
some months, some months ago at least, I don't remember
the exact time frame when when my friends started sending
me like little tidbits about this whole case. I put
it on the list City right away, and then I
decided to save it for more October time because in
that window before you actually start researching something and you
only have kind of the outline idea of what's happening,

(04:47):
I was like, this feels to me like it might
be kind of a on a spectrum of Halloween movies
that runs from like clue to rid, like something on
the clue end of the spectrum. And I'm not sure
if that's really how it where it wound up. But

(05:09):
in terms of a crime in which many, many many
articles include the part about the butler did it because
of his valet's involvement, it does have kind of a
goofy aspect that way, that and the ridiculousness of how
asked parts of life like this does not seem like

(05:30):
you all knew what you were doing in this crime
that you're trying to carry out. Now, I will say
I did also have a moment where I was like,
that's very smart, um, in the midst of plotting, which
was the when they were laying their paper trail and
they included real documents that had been signed by the
forger to kind of establish the forged signature as the

(05:53):
valid when that was genius. Yeah, that one moment. Everybody
has a moment. You know, a broken clock is right
twice a day. Um, that one moment was very very smart.
I was like, oh, that's yes. And then they were dufaces.
I was not cheering for them to do it, but
I was impressed for a moment. Yeah. Um. I did

(06:13):
find some some write ups of this say that Rice
was actually working with Patrick as his lawyer officially, and
then I found other accounts that suggested that that was
not the case, and that that it was just that
Albert Patrick had had created this facade that he was
the real lawyer. Anyway, there's a lot that went on

(06:36):
and some question marks this. The book The Death of
Old Man Rice is like four pages longs I'm sure
there are things in it that did not absorb into
my psyche as I was doing the research. What you
didn't memorize your entire source list? I do. No, it's

(07:00):
possible to memorize entire sources every week. Yeah, my brain
would be more broken than it already seems to be sometimes.
So anyway, we talked about William Palmer and maybe some

(07:25):
serial killing this week. Um all was a super fun topic.
There were a few different things that I wanted to
mention in this behind the scenes one. In some write
ups you will read about his case, there are discussions

(07:46):
of a whole secondary situation where when he killed his wife,
he is believed to have had a mistress who may
have have had a child with him as well. That
was a little tricky for me to substantiate one way
or the other, so I left it out because it
also wasn't really completely germane since it really seemed to

(08:07):
be about money and not some sort of um you know,
I want to ditch my wife and be with this woman,
because that didn't seem to happen either. Uh. The other
thing that I kept throughout doing research on him, I
kept scratching my head over was the fact that he
was a doctor. And I kept thinking about that adage
that occasionally goes around where it's like, do you know

(08:28):
what you call the person who graduates last from his
medical school class a doctor? Because even people who scraped
by still get the title um. And he did seem
to not ever be very invested in his education or
his um his career in any sort of you know,

(08:50):
passionate way. He was a doctor. He seemed to know
some doctors, he seemed to exploit his friendships with some
other doctors. But the one question I always have, and
it it I don't know the answer to it, is that, um,
John Parsons Cook, if he did, as came up in
court testimony, say to his friends that first night that

(09:12):
he started to feel ill, I think Palmer is poisoning me?
Why did he keep hanging out with it? Yeah? I
also had some questions about that soup that appeared to
be making people ill but people kept eating it. What
was up with that? Very strange just foolishness. Yeah, I
don't are you that hungry? Like? Well, and in the

(09:34):
case of the chambermaid, it's always described as like the
soup had just been brought into the kitchen for storage,
and she was like, oh, this is so it smells
so good. I'm just gonna have a couple of spoonfuls.
And she just put a little bit in like a
saucer or something and had it and that was all
she had. But then she didn't think, Hey, I shouldn't
serve this, we should throw this out and not give

(09:54):
it to this sick man. Again, it's a little bit weird.
That also kind of gets into this very strange thing
that it's not strange, but it's evidence of a disturbing
thing that coupled along with the two chemists assistants who
were afraid of getting in trouble so they didn't record

(10:15):
the purchase of strict nine like that, and then this
chambermaid who let the soup go back to the sick
person that was staying at the hotel. It there's this
side of it where it feels like some versions of
it kind of implicate them and it's like, well, they
were stupid and they let this happen. And it's like,

(10:37):
these are people in very low level jobs who do
what they're told because they don't want to get in trouble,
right like in the case of the chemist's assistance. I'm
sure they were, like, well, a doctor came in and
he told me he needed strict nine and I sold
it to him. And I know he doesn't get along
with my boss, but he's a doctor, Like, yeah, I
got I found myself getting very angry on their behalfs

(10:59):
that people were questioning whether they should be held responsible
in some way, and I'm like no, because again, they're
just they're you know, young people who are just trying
to probably keep their lives together with their low paying jobs.
There is a funny story that there's never any explanation
given for this, but it does make me chuckle a

(11:21):
little bit. But it's often said that Palmer's last words
when he went up on the scaffold to be hung
were are you sure this damn thing is safe? What? Right?
And it's like what an odd thing to ask, Like
are you deluded? Do you think you're going to make

(11:43):
it out of this? I don't. It's a very strange,
and I didn't. I didn't include that because one it's
so weird, and two that's another one that's you know,
hard to substantiate. Tales get told yeah, yeah, And it's
not like that was ever part of like official court testimony,
because he had already been sentenced at that time. So

(12:05):
it's that one was a little bit weird. William Palmer
is a strange one. People love to hate him, but
there is a wave of people that do question. Obviously
mean Chase was based, as we said, entirely on circumstantial evidence,
which at the time past muster but certainly would not today.

(12:25):
And it is funny because all of the experts, like,
I mean, there were dozens of medical experts, like the
defense alone, I think called like fifteen or something, and
all of them were like, well, I mean, we don't
really know about strick nine and people exactly, but uh
and even Dr Taylor was like, I've never seen it,
but I did write a book about it. And it's like,

(12:45):
huh yeah, okay, all right, I don't I don't know. Um,
for all we know, he was just a person with terrible,
terrible luck around whom everybody seemed to die sort of strange.
But I don't know. I wasn't there. We don't have

(13:07):
good evidence, unfortunately, but hopefully, UM, everyone listening stays safe
from any harm of this nature death and does and
doesn't do any either. UM. And also doesn't accidentally get
embroiled in any such thing just because they have bad luck.
I hope not everybody have good luck. And since it
is a weekend, I hope you have a great weekend

(13:29):
free of all legal and poison problems, and that you
get some rest if this is a time in your
in your calendar when you normally have rest. Otherwise, if
you do have to go out and handle responsibilities, I
hope that those go as smoothly as possible, and that
everyone is kind to you and that you sail through
it to your time off as well as possible. We

(13:51):
will see you right back here tomorrow with a classic
and then on Monday, brand new episode. Stuff You Missed
in History Class is a production of I Heart Radio.
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